Abstract:
This study was performed in AL-Khalidiah sheep farm, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It designed to investigate the effect of two different probiotic (PROTEXIN®) formulation in relation to different dosing methods on newborn Najdi breed lamb’s performance. 40 newborn lambs were divided into 4 equal groups. C group (control group without any probiotic supplementation), T1 (one dose of PROTEXIN® LIFE START at the first day of age), T2 (daily dose of PROTEXIN® COMPOUNDER) and T3 (combination of one dose of PROTEXIN® LIFE START at the first day of age plus daily dose of PROTEXIN® COMPOUNDER), the study continued up to 60 days age. Body weight, blood serum, rumen fluid and rumen histology parameters were analyzed using (ANOVA). Results showed increase in body weight and body weight gain (P≤ 0.0251, P≤ 0.0046 respectively), T3 was the highest within the groups at the end of the study but with no significant difference (P≤ 0.2258, P≤ 0.2839). Blood parameters showed lower total protein (P≤ 0.05) and globulin (P≤ 0.028) concentrations, no significant interaction between treatment and age however Triglycerides showed interaction between treatments and age (P≤ 0.0042). Cholesterol increased significantly (P≤ 0.0006) and showed interaction between treatment and age (P< 0.0001), T3 obtained the highest increase in cholesterol compared to other groups. There was no effect on urea, NEFA and thyroid hormones concentrations, although, urea (P≤ 0.0362) and T4 hormone (P≤ 0.0003) showed interaction between treatment and age. Rumen fluid showed increased pH with no effect on lactic acid concentration. Rumen TVFA, propionic acid and valeric acid increased with the treatment, but no significant variations between the groups. Molar proportion between VFA showed increase in propionic acid and valeric acid, in contrast decrease in acetic acid compared to control group. No morphological or histological effects regarding rumen papilla length, width and surface area except an increased in papillar density per cm² and thickness of papilla stratum corneum layer. PROTEXIN® probiotic improved lambs’ performance but with no significant differences between application methods, however T3 showed slight better results than the other treatment groups.
